April was an important month for Adolf Hitler. His 56th birthday was on the 20th of 1945. Ten days later, though, on April 30th, he would take his own life in a bunker in Berlin.
We've all heard of the atrocities committed by Hitler and his National Socialist (Nazi) Party, but what if you experienced the atrocities yourself. Could you...forgive? A young woman named Corrie Ten Boom faced that very question.
Corrie lived in Holland where she and her family hid Jews in a hidden room in their house. Corrie believed "You cannot love God without loving the Jewish people." Eventually, she and her family were caught and sent off to various concentration camps where her closest friend, her sister eventually died.
By the grace of God, Corrie survived and shortly after began speaking about what God taught her through her experience, particularly focusing on healing and forgiveness. But, then, one fateful day someone was in the audience she did not expect.
The following is from her autobiography, The Hiding Place: "It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there-the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie's pain-blanched face. He came up to me as the church was emptying beaming and bowing. "How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein," he said. "To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!" His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendall the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side. "Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him. "I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness. "As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me. "And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world's healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself."
Ok, this is the last St. Patrick thing! I just find his life so interesting!
You may have noticed that the Bible stories you learned as a kid were the sanitized versions. The story of Noah and the Ark for example was not just cute animals on a boat and Samson wasn't just about a really strong guy.
The same is true of St. Patrick. When Patrick was a slave in Ireland, his owner was not some cute, funny guy like the one portrayed in the Veggie Tales video from last week. So, after Patrick escaped and then returned to Ireland many years later, his former owner did not run to embrace Patrick or the Jesus Patrick shared. Instead...he locked himself inside his house and burned it down. He feared that Patrick had returned to get revenge and chose instead to take his own life. Not the greatest start to Patrick's mission work in Ireland, eh?
Life with Jesus is not sanitized. Sometimes the people we are trying love turn around and hurt themselves, or us. But Patrick didn't give up because it got hard. He believed that the people of Ireland needed Jesus, that their life without Him would leave them incomplete and unsatisfied and unsaved. Like Paul says, "Christ's love compels us" to be lights in the world.
But for there to be a need for light, there must be darkness. I want to join those pushing back the darkness, like Patrick did. I can only hope you might join us too.
A number of years ago, I struggled with lots of nervousness and anxiety. I would feel nervous even when there wasn't any reason to feel that way. Eventually, I discovered that had what is called an anxiety disorder. This is where your body send the signals usually designed to be sent when you have a real reason to fear, aka there's a bear over there-run!!! So here I was experiencing that feeling at random times of my day without any apparent reason.
As you can guess it was a struggle. At my church, I asked one of the pastors to pray for me. He did and then encouraged me to pray "the prayer of St. Patrick." Now, I've never been a fan of reciting prayers. I prefer instead to just talk to God normally. But, I was desperate so I looked it up and here is part of it:
Christ shield me today
Against wounding
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.
I learned that supposedly Patrick, when he was traveling through hostile parts of Ireland where his life was often in danger because he was sharing Jesus, would pray this prayer.
I have found the words of this prayer to be a serious comfort for anxiety in particular as it helps me realize that God is not "out there somewhere" but actually is inside and all around me, all the time.
Below is a video of a recent worship song that makes use of some of the prayer's words:
To celebrate Presidents' Day, let me introduce you to a US president that I knew nothing about until recently. His nickname was "Silent Cal." Check out this president who did things dramatically different from any of our recent commanders in chief.
